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First POST: Documents

Thanks to a tip, I took the elevator to the eighth floor of the parking garage directly across the street from the building and found three guys, a minivan, and the signal itself: A digital projector attached to a laptop, all powered by a personal generator stashed on the roof of the garage. The signal creator introduced himself as Mungen Cakes, an electrical engineer. The plans for the Occupy Portland bat signal are based on the very similar one recently seen in New York.

"I saw that and I said, 'I have to do that! I was freakin' born to do that!" says Mungen Cakes.

In Los Angeles, police officials sought to restrict reporters from presenting any live coverage — through Twitter, a cellphone, a live radio hit, whatever — of their eviction of the Occupy camp in the City of Angels. LA Weekly reports:

Embedded media won't even be able to use their cellphones during the raid. Officer Karen Rayner at LAPD media relations says, "I think I heard somebody say they weren't allowed to use their cellphones or Tweet or anything like that." And KNX news radio confirms to the LA Weekly that their reporter at the scene has been "embargoed" from leaking information until the eviction is over.

The growing use by government agencies and political campaigns of new channels of electronic communication, including text messages, online videos and social media services, has opened new dimensions in the availability of public records. But presidential candidates haven't been especially transparent.

"There's the potential for a lot more raw information than in the past as emails and other electronic communications replace phone and face-to-face conversations," said Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit public interest group. "The problem is we're seeing officials and governments moving more and more to shield those materials from public access."